In various contexts where a coating is applied to a surface, it is often desirable to roughen the surface prior to applying the coating, to thereby increase the adhesion between the surface and coating. Examples of such situations include the application of paint to an aircraft or plasma sprayed coatings to vehicle or aircraft engine pans, and chemical plating. It may also be desirable to roughen a surface to prepare it for other uses, for example, in a chemical reaction. This is due to the fact that roughening a surface effectively increases the surface area of the given surface, thereby accelerating reaction times.
Currently available systems for preparing a surface to receive a coating include the use of chemicals, grit blasting, and sandpaper. However, these methods are cumbersome, expensive, and produce wastes that are becoming more and more unacceptable, given environmental concerns.
An alternative, currently available system uses ultrahigh-pressure fluid round jets to roughen a surface. However, such systems provide less than optimal results, given that it is often necessary and desirable to uniformly roughen 100% of a surface. The performance of a round jet is limited because it has a circular cross-section and it is therefore necessary to move the round jet in a circular pattern in an attempt to roughen the entire surface. Rotating a round jet is equivalent to moving a point, however, and as a result, the movement of the round jet over a surface may produce a pattern in which some areas on the surface are hit multiple times while other areas of various shapes are not hit at all by the jet. The surface may therefore not be uniformly roughened.
A need therefore exists for an improved method for preparing surfaces to receive a coating or to be used in some other manner.